The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1887-05-13
IM MORTALITY.
a sermon by Dir. w. IL. Furness.

death? Busy rs we are with the present,
this inquiry breaks in upon one and
another of us every hour. There is no sup
pressing it. We cannot forget it, cannot
keep it for any length of time out of mind.
Death, suddenly ard unlocked Tor, APP
pears in our households and forces us to
confront the great question. The loving
and the loved in whom our lives are wrap
ped up, the sharers in all our interests, drop
asleep in the mysterious slumber from
which there is no awakening, and the
question is irrepressible. What has be-
come of them? Where have they gone?
Have they vanished into nothingness, never
more to be?
You may contemplate with indifference
the entire extinction of your own being
(although the possibility of your conceiv
ing the idea is doubtfuD, but that the idol
lied ones who were the most real, most
precious of your possessions, and who have
gone from your homes, have vanished ut
know or be known in the undesirable
universe, is thought too full of anguish.
1t breaks our hearts. Where are they?
Shall we never, never meet again?
But it is not death alone that forces these
questions upon us. All life seems hastine
away like a wind. driven vapor. The swift
and various changes of which we are every
day compelled to take note, the rapid al
formations of the seasons, the quick sue
cession of years, the fading days, children
leapihg into maturity, the strong and the
active overtaken by infirmities, and tot
terins down to old age, the altered aspects
of the streets through which we pass, the
strange faces that we meet-these and
countless other changes, impressing us
with the breyity of life, bring death and
futnrity to mind. Is this the be-ail and
the end-all? Is our life only this shadow
How short and unfinished! What trag
ment. What n shred. How frail is the
being OF man, Begun only to be broken
off. Our expectations, so vast in the con
ception SO meagre in their fulfillment,
What are we so busy about, rising up so
early, sitting up so late? Is it all a dream
from which we are to awake, or is it a
mocking delusiona We look back upon
the two, three, or four score years, as the
case may be- of our personal histories and
how they seem to have evaporated, leaving,
it may be, only the humiliating sense of
wasted opportunities and broken resolu-
tions. is is not melancholy to read the
letters and biographies of distinguished
persons, who were in their day so busy,
commanding all mems attention? The af-
fairs that absorbed them are all but dust
and ashes now. Were they-were all WHO
have made the world ring with their deeds,
nothing but transient apparitions? What
induces the eternal providence to maintain
a show apparently so empty? Surely there
must be something more solid and lasting
than human life thus seems to come to.
AS we contemplate the vanishing specta-
Gle, not whisper reaches the ear from the
dark beyond the grave to assure lis that
the dead are still living in unimpaired, full
possession of their personal consciousness.
1t is the silence that appals us, and beats
down our trembling hopes into the dust.
And yet, dear friends, the fact that we
know nothing of a life beyond the grave,
neither comprehend how it can be, author
ICES no presumption against the reality
of life to come. This fact Of our
ignorance and inability to form any
idea of a future life is often given as a rea-
son for rejecting the idea altogether. We
don't know and we cannot know anything
about it, it is said, and therefore we may
as well give it up altogether.
Is not this the very objection to life
hereafter that the Apostle treats with ire
pressible contempt? GLOW are the dead
raised ~ does some one ask as if the ques-
ton were fatal. s'And with what bodies
do they come? Foolr' In answer to these
queries he points to the manifold manfes-
tations of the Divine Power, which is as
much to say that, in view of all these differ
ent forms of being, what folly it is to ques-
ton the resources of the Creator and to
uOubl uoW IL tiiilis Cti ot, HiSlCiy
we cannot conceive of it. We have the idea
that, if there is another life, we ought to
know how it can be.
Now, it seems to me the presumption is
directly the other way. If there is a life
conscious life after death, it is in the
highest degree improbable that we should
be able to form any idea of it. Finite, ig-
norant creatures are We; and the life be-
yond the grave is the work of the Infinite
Power. We have but very imperfect,
superficial, apprehension of what is, of
what is here and now, before our eyes, in
our hands. How absurd, then, is the no.
ton that we should understand what is
hidden beyond the mystery of death. Life
is the inspiration of the most High. What
wisdom of man has ever yet been able 10
fathom this secret, even here and now
while we are beholding it and consciously
possessing it? Who can tell what life, this
life isl Since we know not how it exists
here, how can we dream of understanding
how it is to be continued herealters We
cannot anticipate the productions of hui
iaan genius. every work of genius it
is said, sis an impossibility until it APP
pears" Can we expect, then, to know